phonon

I am using fvwm with fvwm-crystal. I use a few kde apps like kate or kaffeine. I am also running jack all the time as sound server.

The only one program I get trouble with this setup is kaffeine. When the sound is working fine with the old kaffeine version for kde3, it doesn't work at all with kaffeine for kde4. The problem seam to come from kaffeine and phonon.

On one hand, the new kaffeine use the outdated and non maintained xine backend for phonon. On the other hand, I can launch kde, setup phonon to use jack, and kaffeine work fine with it. But back into fvwm, I still get no sound with kaffeine as kde is not running anymore.

I try to remove phonon-kde and install qt-phonon. The removing of phonon-kde was fine and kdebase-meta was removed at the same time. But I am still not able to install qt-phonon as it is a blocking: kaffeine need kde-libs, which block qt-phonon.

In conclusion, phonon is worst for me than arts was. What a mess!?! ... I don't want to flame, this is just my POV.

Do you know if the kde guys (the upstream for phonon for what I know) do have any plan to solve this mess?

Do you know any solution that will let me to have sound from kaffeine into jack when not running kde?

> I am using fvwm with fvwm-crystal. I use a few kde apps like kate or > kaffeine. I am also running jack all the time as sound server. > > The only one program I get trouble with this setup is kaffeine. When the > sound is working fine with the old kaffeine version for kde3, it doesn't > work at all with kaffeine for kde4. The problem seam to come from > kaffeine and phonon.

> Do you know if the kde guys (the upstream for phonon for what I know) do > have any plan to solve this mess?

The problem with qt-phonon was that the qt guys decided to use it for multimedia, then just as quickly (but after making it a part of qt4) decided it wasn't really what they needed for the mobile side and went with qt-multimedia instead. So it kind of got dropped as far as continued improvements go, but they had to continue shipping it since it was now part of the qt4 api.

Of course, then nokia dropped much of their previous Linux/Qt-based- mobile emphasis and went with MS... kind of leaving the mobile-targeted qt-multimedia up in the air. <shrug>

Qt5 is under development, but I honestly haven't the foggiest what they're doing with multimedia there. Perhaps they'll fully drop phonon. OTOH, perhaps now that the money angle isn't driving it to the same extent and any further platform ports will be purely community driven, perhaps they'll drop qt-multimedia (or keep the name but integrate phonon) and refocus on the desktop.

Perhaps the best that has come out of the whole mess, is that qt itself is now fully free, sponsored by the qt-foundation, which was in turn setup by nokia, but is fully community governed and steered, now, with the nokia sponsored devs and other community devs now on the same footing -- it's a purely contributions based meritocracy now.

Meanwhile, while kde-5 is already under development, they're making this one a MUCH more incremental upgrade and AFAIK will keep kde-phonon. Time will tell whether they learned the lessons of the kde3 -> kde4 upgrade or whether they're simply making a bunch more empty promises that will be out like yesterday's bathwater. One thing I know for sure is that they have about zero credibility left to lose at this point, so one way or another, it'll get better: they either pay attention to their users or they'll end up much like xfree86 did when xorg took off.

But... phonon /should/ be able to be run independently of kde, since that was the idea from the start, both for kde-phonon, and with qt-phonon. For me, however, kde4, now USE=-semantic-desktop and without akonadi, nepomuk, etc (I migrated to claws-mail for mail and run a separate instance of it for my feed-reader so no kdepim to pull in akonadi at all, and I was thus able to kill semantic-desktop entirely), is still my desktop of choice, so I'm running phonon with it and thus will be about zero help in trying to run it independently. But I believe I can still be of help, see below. =:^)

> Do you know any solution that will let me to have sound from kaffeine > into jack when not running kde?

I *STRONGLY* recommend that you try smplayer, instead. Back in the kde3 era I swore by kaffeine myself, but back when I last tried the kde4 kaffeine alpha, back in the kde 4.2/4.3 era when kde and gentoo were dropping kde3 support (with qt3 support already long gone upstream), it was a castrated wimp of its former self, with barely the basics working, non of its former power. Maybe it has improved since then, but I found something even better, for me at least, and haven't looked back.

I went looking for something else, and stumbled upon the qt-4 based smplayer. For me, smplayer had all the configurability and power of kaffeine for kde3, if not more, and I've been using it ever since. =:^) As mentioned it's qt4 based, and can skin to look like a kde app if desired. However, because it's only qt4, not kde4, it doesn't require any of the kde4 infrastructure, including the phonon that's giving you so much problems.

But still a couple of caveats, that might or might not affect your usage. First, smplayer is (as the name implies) mplayer based, not xine- based as is kaffeine. I was originally a bit leery of that as I'd had problems with mplayer back in the day, but the problems seem to have been worked out and at least via smplayer, mplayer seems to be fine, now. =:^) Second, while smplayer appears to have tv-tuner-card functionality similar to that of kaffeine, I don't have such a device, so have no idea how it compares in that regard. All I know is that it /more/ than exceeded my expectations in regard to playing computer and dvd media, and is if anything, even more configurable, hotkeys, etc, than kaffeine was.

So... I HIGHLY recommend that you try smplayer. I certainly haven't looked back at kaffeine since I did. Hopefully you'll be as happy with it as I've been. =:^)

Meanwhile, back to phonon, if it's still needed after you try smplayer... I had some problems with phonon-xine too. As you mention, it's deprecated and doesn't get a lot of love, these days. There's other backends, however.

phonon-vlc is the one I use. Of course, that means installing yet another media player, but phonon-vlc works well, here. (At least on my main machine, however, smplayer still works better than vlc, tho. But on my netbook with its much lower resolution and Intel based graphics, I had some problems with the various smplayer video backends, and vlc seems to bypass them so works better, there.)

The upstream default phonon-backend is phonon-gstreamer, probably because so many distributions ship gnome by default, thus making gstreamer the best integrated phonon-backend for them. But as with mplayer, I had problems with gstreamer back in the day, and haven't had it on my system since. Very likely, again just like mplayer, the problems are long worked out and gstreamer would be fine, but as I'm sure you know, gentoo's build-from-sources approach tends to encourage the good security practice of only installing what you actually use, and I've simply never needed to try gstreamer since I had those problems, as there have always been other working alternatives.

So if you need to keep phonon, do try one of the other backends, either phonon-gstreamer or phonon-vlc, depending on what fits in best on your system. Either one is likely to work better than the deprecated phonon- xine. I know phonon-vlc has solved my problems here, and when others have reported problems with their backend (mostly on the kde lists, a couple of which I'm a regular on) and I suggested switching, some of them chose phonon-gstreamer and reported back that it solved their problems. But OTOH, I've had a couple people who were on the gstreamer backend report problems, that went away when they switched to a different one. But there's at least the three to choose from, so if one has problems, do try another. I've never had anyone that reported failure with all three backends, tho that was in the kde context, and your problem may not be the backend, but phonon/kde4 itself. Still, it's worth giving the different backends a try, if you still need phonon after giving smplayer a try, anyway.

-- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

> Dominique Michel posted on Sat, 19 Nov 2011 14:35:18 +0100 as > excerpted: > > > I am using fvwm with fvwm-crystal. I use a few kde apps like kate or > > kaffeine. I am also running jack all the time as sound server. > > > > The only one program I get trouble with this setup is kaffeine. > > When the sound is working fine with the old kaffeine version for > > kde3, it doesn't work at all with kaffeine for kde4. The problem > > seam to come from kaffeine and phonon. > > > Do you know if the kde guys (the upstream for phonon for what I > > know) do have any plan to solve this mess? > > The problem with qt-phonon was that the qt guys decided to use it for > multimedia, then just as quickly (but after making it a part of qt4) > decided it wasn't really what they needed for the mobile side and > went with qt-multimedia instead. So it kind of got dropped as far as > continued improvements go, but they had to continue shipping it since > it was now part of the qt4 api. > > Of course, then nokia dropped much of their previous Linux/Qt-based- > mobile emphasis and went with MS... kind of leaving the > mobile-targeted qt-multimedia up in the air. <shrug> > > Qt5 is under development, but I honestly haven't the foggiest what > they're doing with multimedia there. Perhaps they'll fully drop > phonon. OTOH, perhaps now that the money angle isn't driving it to > the same extent and any further platform ports will be purely > community driven, perhaps they'll drop qt-multimedia (or keep the > name but integrate phonon) and refocus on the desktop. > > Perhaps the best that has come out of the whole mess, is that qt > itself is now fully free, sponsored by the qt-foundation, which was > in turn setup by nokia, but is fully community governed and steered, > now, with the nokia sponsored devs and other community devs now on > the same footing -- it's a purely contributions based meritocracy now.

Nice move.

> > > Do you know any solution that will let me to have sound from > > kaffeine into jack when not running kde? > > I *STRONGLY* recommend that you try smplayer, instead. Back in the > kde3 era I swore by kaffeine myself, but back when I last tried the > kde4 kaffeine alpha, back in the kde 4.2/4.3 era when kde and gentoo > were dropping kde3 support (with qt3 support already long gone > upstream), it was a castrated wimp of its former self, with barely > the basics working, non of its former power. Maybe it has improved > since then, but I found something even better, for me at least, and > haven't looked back. > > I went looking for something else, and stumbled upon the qt-4 based > smplayer. For me, smplayer had all the configurability and power of > kaffeine for kde3, if not more, and I've been using it ever since. > =:^) As mentioned it's qt4 based, and can skin to look like a kde app > if desired. However, because it's only qt4, not kde4, it doesn't > require any of the kde4 infrastructure, including the phonon that's > giving you so much problems. > > But still a couple of caveats, that might or might not affect your > usage. First, smplayer is (as the name implies) mplayer based, not > xine- based as is kaffeine. I was originally a bit leery of that as > I'd had problems with mplayer back in the day, but the problems seem > to have been worked out and at least via smplayer, mplayer seems to > be fine, now. =:^) Second, while smplayer appears to have > tv-tuner-card functionality similar to that of kaffeine, I don't have > such a device, so have no idea how it compares in that regard. All I > know is that it /more/ than exceeded my expectations in regard to > playing computer and dvd media, and is if anything, even more > configurable, hotkeys, etc, than kaffeine was. > > So... I HIGHLY recommend that you try smplayer. I certainly haven't > looked back at kaffeine since I did. Hopefully you'll be as happy > with it as I've been. =:^) >

I like mplayer, it is the best player around with alsaplayer. They are simple, but get the job done. I try smplayer. It lack several functions of kaffeine like the channel search and the EPG. I used dvbscan from linuxtv-dvb-apps for searching the channels, and now the dvb-s part of my card work with smplayer.

I still miss the recording facility of kaffeine. It is possible to add a dumpstream in the options, but it would be better to use mencoder for that. With mencoder, we would have the capability to transcode the recording to another format.

I also have problem with the dvb-t part of the card. I finally get a working channel list for the dvb-t. But I cannot get it to work with mplayer. I get a workaround here : https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=913466but when I apply it, this is the dvb-s part of the card that is not working any more. So I have to look if I can solve it with some custom udev rules.

> I try smplayer. It lack several functions of kaffeine like the channel > search and the EPG. I used dvbscan from linuxtv-dvb-apps for searching > the channels, and now the dvb-s part of my card work with smplayer.

You're way beyond my level there. Hopefully smplayer does work for you after workarounds, etc, but I'm afraid I won't be of much more help, there.

Did you have time to try the other phonon backends, phonon-vlc or phonon- gstreamer, and that didn't work, or are you trying smplayer first and will only fall back to kaffeine and the phonon thing if that can't be made to work?

Also, it's not of much help now, but given how advanced smplayer already is, the author is obviously targeting the user wanting more than just the typical media control buttons. As such, I'd /guess/ he'd be quite willing to work to integrate additional functionality you may need, if you simply ask, and especially if you can well explain it for implementation and are willing to bug-squash with the first implementations. It may well be that smplayer could have all the functionality you need integrated, in a couple versions, if you just ask and are willing to test for him. =:^)

But I'm just guessing. I've not contacted him myself and couldn't presume to speak for him or obligate him. Still, the chances are far higher there, than they would be with, say, dragonplayer, kde's default- as-shipped media-player-for-dummies.

-- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

> Dominique Michel posted on Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:56:21 +0100 as > excerpted: > > > I try smplayer. It lack several functions of kaffeine like the > > channel search and the EPG. I used dvbscan from linuxtv-dvb-apps > > for searching the channels, and now the dvb-s part of my card work > > with smplayer. > > You're way beyond my level there. Hopefully smplayer does work for > you after workarounds, etc, but I'm afraid I won't be of much more > help, there.

I get it to work with a few custom udev rules. The trick is to create a fake dvb card with symlinks in /dev/dvb. The device must be shifted for that card (adapter1/demux0 must link to adapter0/demux1 and so on). That way, I can run "mplayer dvb://1@" for the dvb-s and "mplayer dvb://2@" for the dvb-t.

It work fine with mplayer and both dvb-s and dvb-t now, but with smplayer only the dvb-s is working.

> > Did you have time to try the other phonon backends, phonon-vlc or > phonon- gstreamer, and that didn't work, or are you trying smplayer > first and will only fall back to kaffeine and the phonon thing if > that can't be made to work?

No. kaffeine for kde3 work fine here with my setup. What I want is to find another good solution for watching and recording TV for the time when this version of kaffeine will not work any more.

I already done a xdialog script for the radio because mplayer was the only one player that was able to run the radio, that without the need of an internal audio cable between the radio card and the sound card. I extended it in order to be able to record from the video input of my TV card with mencoder. And maybe than I will extend it further for TV watching and recording.

> > Also, it's not of much help now, but given how advanced smplayer > already is, the author is obviously targeting the user wanting more > than just the typical media control buttons. As such, I'd /guess/ > he'd be quite willing to work to integrate additional functionality > you may need, if you simply ask, and especially if you can well > explain it for implementation and are willing to bug-squash with the > first implementations. It may well be that smplayer could have all > the functionality you need integrated, in a couple versions, if you > just ask and are willing to test for him. =:^)

The above issue is a problem with mplayer. Another problem is than the developer of smplayer seam to lack a DVB card.

> > But I'm just guessing. I've not contacted him myself and couldn't > presume to speak for him or obligate him. Still, the chances are far > higher there, than they would be with, say, dragonplayer, kde's > default- as-shipped media-player-for-dummies. >

> No. kaffeine for kde3 work fine here with my setup. What I want is to > find another good solution for watching and recording TV for the time > when this version of kaffeine will not work any more.

The KDE 3.5 version of Kaffeine is one of the assorted auxiliary programs adopted by the Trinity Project, so there's still an upstream trying to maintain it and it will hopefully remain workable for some time to come.